In Comfort Woman Debate, Experts Agree Statue Has To Stay Across From Japan Embassy In Seoul

Whatever the Japanese and Koreans do for final settlement of the comfort woman controversy, one thing is pretty clear: the statue stays.

Experts agree, the Japanese had better not derail the deal by insisting on removal of the bronze statue of a demure Korean girl, garbed in Korean hanbok, across the street from the Japanese embassy in Seoul. If they say the statue has to go before they put up any of the one billion yen, more than $8 million, agreed on last month by the Japanese and Korean foreign ministers, then basically both sides are back to square one in the bitter debate that has roiled Japanese-Korean relations for the past five years.

What’s more, in the view of Mike Mochizuki, associate professor of political science at George Washington University, the U.S. should cease and desist from its role as “innocent bystander” or even “honest broker” in the controversy and talk some reason into the Japanese.

South Korean policemen stand guard near Comfort Woman statue in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul (JUNG YEON-JE/AFP/Getty Images)

“The U.S. should tell Japan the statue issue is not a precondition,” Mochizuki advised after speaking out at a panel staged by the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. Moreover, he added, “It would be great if the U.S. should try to persuade (Japan Prime Minister) Abe to try to meet with comfort women in Seoul.”

On the same panel, Lee Sung-Yoon, professor in Korean Studies at the Fletcher School of, Tufts University, warned that removal of the statue by Korean authorities, perhaps in a midnight operation where demonstrators would be less likely to be guarding it, would provoke mass protests in Seoul, undermining the conservative government of President Park Geun-Hye.

“The statue has to stay where it is,” Lee told me after talking on the panel. “The Japanese have to live with it. There’s no other way.”

While the statue remains in place, in the face of Japanese entreaties and protests, analysts believe Japanese and Koreans could do much more somehow to improve on the December agreement – either to make it work or at least to come to terms on a festering dispute that never goes away.

The agreement as such, they believe, was a beginning, not an ending. “Japan-Korea relations are not that bad,” Lee said, but “the agreement was imperfect.” You cannot, he argued, “just close the book on crimes against humanity.”

In Mochizuki’s view, “What is wanting in the agreement is the spirit of reconciliation.” While renegotiating the agreement would be “disastrous,” he believes a personal encounter between Abe and some of the 40 or so comfort women still alive would go beyond the usual apologies and expressions of remorse.

As for the U.S. role, he noted that historically the U.S. had been “an enabler of Japanese colonization of Korea” – an apparent reference to the understanding dating from Japan’s defeat of the Russians in 1905 that Japan would dominate the Korean peninsula while the Americans lorded it over the Philippines.

Mochizuki was not happy about the euphoria engendered in Washington by the impression that Japan and Korea, both U.S. allies but nowhere near allying with one another, had gotten over the nagging question of recompense for the sins inflicted upon tens of thousands of women forced to serve as “sex slaves” in the Pacific War.

“There’s a lot of ambiguity about the agreement,” he said. “Unfortunately U.S. policy-makers embraced this as almost a settlement. Senior fellows with think tanks embraced it.”

But what did he like as a solution – other than Abe going to Seoul and meeting a few survivors of their ordeal at the hands of the Japanese? His response was about as vague as much of the other talk we’ve been hearing for years.

“I advocate a sustained systematic effort,” he advised. “Why aren’t major foundations in the U.S. putting up real money for debate. The U.S. should play a role.” He offered no specific suggestions, though, on what the U.S. should do – aside from suggesting, “Make this a government initiative.

Park Yu-Ha, professor at Sejong University, under fire in Korea for writing a book, “Teikoku no Ianfu” (“Comfort Women of the Empire”), that offers a more nuanced view of the comfort woman question than you’re likely to hear in Seoul, called for “open discussion” of the issue.

Why not, she said, form a committee of scholars that could consider the problem “objectively,” based on facts. “We should not discuss ideologies. We need to stay apolitical. It’s important we do not let nationalism take priority. We need to look at what really took place.”

Park has had, however, to counter claims that she distorted the image of comfort women by attempting to adopt a balanced view. “My book does talk about the issues facing Korean society,” she said. “I have never denied this comfort woman question existed. There is some misunderstanding. I am not trying to whitewash history.”

Her greatest offense may have been to observe that Japanese were not the only guilty ones. “We know there were collaborators,” she said, meaning Koreans aiding and abetting the Japanese in the quest for women. “We have not asked collaborators and brokers to take responsibility. Who are these people?”

That question alone shows the obstacles to an understanding that’s really acceptable to all sides. No one doubted, though, the need to keep talking.

“Harmonization is indispensable,” said Toyomi Asano, political science professor of at Waseda University in Tokyo. “We should work together. This time of critical negotiations is a first step to achieve justice in the future.”

A Waseda colleague, Naoyuki Umemori, introduced another term. “Transitional justice,” he said. “This term is used for resolution of problems from the past, justice in the transitional period.” But transition to what? Like the others, he had no solutions other than talk-talk while the comfort woman statue remains immutable, a symbol of irreconcilable bitterness.

I have reported from Asia since covering the "Year of Living Dangerously" in Indonesia, 1965-66, and the war in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in the late 1960s-early 1970s for newspapers and magazines, including the Chicago Tribune and the old Washington (DC) Star. I also wrote...